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The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the results of the residential mortgage survey for January 2011.
New mortgage loans drawn down during January dropped by 30.0% to HK$21.7 billion compared with December last year.
New loans approved in January also declined by 3.2% to HK$28.0 billion. Approvals for primary market transactions and refinancing transactions decreased by HK$0.1 billion (4.6%) and HK$1.9 billion (25.7%) respectively, while those for secondary market transactions increased by HK$1.0 billion or 5.3%. The number of new applications in January was 19,474. This is 35.1% higher than the December figure, but 15.6% lower than November 2010.
Around 6% of the new mortgage loans approved in January were priced with reference to best lending rates, with the largest portion in the price range of 2% to less than 2.25%. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to HIBOR increased to 92.2% from 90.0% in December.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.7% to HK$745.8 billion.
Both the mortgage delinquency ratio and rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.01% and 0.04% respectively in January.
Ends/Friday, February 25, 2011
Issued at HKT 17:26
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